Neighbor arrested after family dog shot in Excel, Alabama

EXCEL, Ala. — A family dog is recovering after being shot near the property line of a home on Highway 136 in Excel, and the neighbor accused of firing the shot has been arrested, according to the Excel Police Department. The case has drawn attention across Monroe County, where the image of a wounded pet and an arrested neighbor has sparked a wider conversation about how disputes between landowners, pets, and property lines get handled under Alabama law.

The dog, a family pet of more than 12 years, was shot once with a .22-caliber round. The bullet entered the dog’s right side and exited near the front of the neck, a trajectory that could easily have been fatal. Family members said the dog was spitting up blood and shaking after the shooting, and they credited quick care for his survival. The animal’s recovery, after such a close call, has been the one bright note in an incident that otherwise left two households on the same rural road at legal war with each other.

What Police Say Happened

Excel Police Chief Mike West confirmed the incident in a statement, saying the animal was on the shooter’s property when it was struck and that the case remains under investigation pending applicable charges. That detail — the dog’s location at the moment it was shot — is central to how such cases are evaluated in Alabama, where property owners generally have latitude to protect their property from animals but where the use of a firearm toward a neighboring pet raises questions of justification that investigators must sort through.

Daniel Lewis Dixon, a neighbor, was later arrested and booked into the Monroe County Jail on a reckless endangerment charge. The charge does not hinge on the harm to the dog itself; under Alabama law, reckless endangerment applies when a person engages in conduct that creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person, and prosecutors have used it in cases where a firearm was discharged in circumstances that put people nearby in danger — including, in some instances, the animal’s owners or others within range of the shot.

The arrest, days after the shooting itself, signaled that investigators concluded the discharge of the weapon was not justified under the circumstances, whatever the dog’s location at the time. Dixon’s case will move through the Monroe County court system in Monroeville, the county seat, where the initial proceedings will determine whether the charge is bound over for further prosecution.

The Citation Against the Owners

In a twist that frustrated the dog’s family, the owners were also cited for allowing the animal to run at large. The citation reflects Alabama’s long-standing approach to loose animals: state law and county ordinances generally require dog owners to keep their animals confined to their own property, and an owner whose dog is found roaming can face a citation regardless of what happens to the animal afterward.

The parallel outcome — an arrested shooter and a cited owner — captures the uncomfortable legal geometry of the case. The law offers remedies on both sides: an owner can face consequences when a pet leaves the property, and a person who responds to a loose animal with a gun can face far more serious consequences when the discharge endangers people. Advocates for pet owners note that the two outcomes are not equivalent, since one is a fine-tier citation and the other is a criminal charge involving a firearm, but police Chief West’s statement made clear that investigators treated each side of the incident on its own legal footing.

For the family, the citation stings in part because the 12-year-old pet’s wandering ended with a bullet. For the accused neighbor, the reckless endangerment charge carries the far heavier burden, with potential penalties that include jail time and a criminal record if a conviction follows.

Recovery After the Shooting

The dog’s survival owes much to the response that followed the shooting. Family members described a frightening scene in the minutes after the animal was struck: spitting up blood, shaking, and visibly in distress from a wound that had passed through much of his upper body. The speed with which the family sought veterinary care made the difference, and the dog’s recovery from a .22-caliber wound that entered his right side and exited near the front of the neck has been described as remarkable given the round’s path through tissue near the neck and chest.

Veterinarians in rural Alabama communities like Excel are often the first line of care in cases like this, and the availability of prompt treatment — whether from a local clinic or an emergency facility elsewhere in Monroe County or along the nearby corridors into Escambia County and Monroeville — is frequently the deciding factor in whether a wounded animal survives. The family’s decision to seek care immediately, rather than wait to assess the wound, followed the guidance veterinarians give in every such case: a gunshot wound is an emergency even when an animal seems stable.

The recovery will involve ongoing monitoring for infection, tissue damage, and any lingering effects of the round’s path, and the family has described the pet’s return to his usual routines as the outcome they hoped for through the worst days after the shooting.

Small-Town Policing and Rural Disputes

Excel is a small Monroe County town along Highway 136, where lots are spread out, dogs commonly range between properties, and neighbor disputes over animals are among the most frequent calls local police handle. Chief West’s department covers a community where nearly everyone knows everyone, which raises the stakes of an arrest like Dixon’s: in a town of Excel’s size, a criminal case between neighbors is not an abstraction but a rupture in a social fabric that has to be lived in afterward.

Police departments across rural Alabama handle these disputes within a narrow legal corridor. Property owners have rights to protect livestock and property, but the protection of people comes first in the law’s hierarchy, and discharging a firearm in a way that creates risk to people is treated as a serious matter even when the target is an animal. At the same time, owners cited for dogs running at large are reminded that the citation is not a judgment about the pet but about containment — a duty the state assigns to every dog owner.

West’s statement that the case remains under investigation pending applicable charges leaves room for additional findings, and investigators continue to gather statements from those involved. The department has not indicated whether further charges are anticipated or whether the reckless endangerment case will stand as the sole criminal matter arising from the shooting.

What the Law Says About Dogs and Guns

The case illustrates a patchwork of Alabama statutes and local rules that many residents only encounter after something goes wrong. State law treats dogs as personal property, which means injuring or killing another person’s dog can expose a shooter to civil liability for the animal’s value and, in circumstances involving cruelty, to criminal charges. Reckless endangerment addresses the risk to people, and prosecutors weigh factors such as the direction of fire, what lay beyond the target, and whether children or other residents were nearby when the shot was fired.

On the ownership side, Alabama’s at-large rules date back generations and exist to prevent exactly the kind of incident that unfolded on Highway 136. Counties and municipalities adopt their own confinement ordinances, and the practical rule of thumb across rural Monroe County is that a dog should be on its owner’s property, on a leash, or under voice control. The citation issued to the dog’s owners will likely result in a fine and a reminder of the containment requirement, and the family has said they intend to ensure the animal stays confined during his recovery.

Animal welfare organizations in the region recommend that rural pet owners take additional steps beyond the legal minimum: fencing or tie-outs for dogs prone to wandering, identification tags and microchips that make a returned animal easier to reunite, and prompt reporting of any shooting or poisoning to local police rather than handling it privately. Documentation made in the first hours — photographs of the wound, the location where the animal was found, and veterinary records — often becomes the evidence on which any later criminal or civil case turns.

A Neighborhood Changed

Beyond the courtroom, the shooting has left its mark on a stretch of Highway 136 where two households now share a property line and a grievance. The dog is home, healing, and — for the first time in more than 12 years — closely confined, a change of routine his family says has been harder on the family than on the dog. Dixon, meanwhile, awaits the process that will determine the outcome of the reckless endangerment charge, and Monroe County’s courts will take up a case that began with a single .22-caliber round fired near a fence line.

Chief West’s department has urged residents on both sides, and the wider community, to let the investigation and the courts do their work. In a town the size of Excel, that request carries particular weight: rumors travel faster than case files, and the department has emphasized that the facts established in court, not the versions circulating on social media, will be the ones that matter.

The incident stands as a reminder to pet owners and property owners alike across Monroe County and the wider Alabama news area. Dogs that roam are at risk not only of traffic and injury but of encounters that can turn violent in a moment, and the consequences of a gunshot fired in anger or carelessness can follow a shooter long after the animal recovers. For one family in Excel, the lesson arrived with a bullet that missed everything vital by a small margin; for their neighbor, it arrived in the form of a jail booking and a criminal charge that will play out in the months ahead.

Anyone with information about the incident is encouraged to contact the Excel Police Department as the investigation continues.